PSPs in 2022

Dug out a near-20 year old first gen Playstation Portable, which while awaiting a new battery (old one is swollen, eek) got digging into where those have been left. The last firmware from Sony was 6.61 in 2015 and it has been well and truly hacked since. Lots more detail on this page about how to update, and put on a fully functional custom firmware for good.

Why do this? To play all the games of course. As UMDs were fairly size constrained it means the subsequent torrents are a sensible size. There’s one with 140 great games out there for the size of a chunky modern PC game with updates (76GB). No modern rubbish like updates, network or pay to play here. Finished games.

PLUS in the modern world the hardware is pretty ancient, basically being a Sony PS1 in your pocket, so there’s a pretty perfect emulator for everyone else in PPSSPP - works like a dream on a M1 Mac.

Me = currently absolutely hooked on Lumines 2 and Wipeout Pure